Comments on: 30 Dumb Inventions from Life Magazine

By: xritl

xritl — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 05:42:01 +0000

A more civilized time, when a man would never think of demonstrating “sea shoes” or a motorized surfboard without wearing a suit and tie. Only one of them has a hat on, though.

By: Jari

Jari — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:31:14 +0000

Yes, that’s the very same Sir Clive Sinclair, who brought you one of the early flatscreen televisions, some hifi stuff, some cool looking calculators, led watches, ZX-80 and it’s successors and Sinlair C-5 electric vehicle. Remarkable man when you think, what he tried to achieve during 80′s and beyond.

By: Wayne

Wayne — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:04:16 +0000

Number 18 has the comment “British inventor Clive Sinclair shows off his mini television.” Anyone know if that’s the same Sinclair that brought us the Sinclair computer.

It then continues “Please note the thickness of his glasses.” to tear down his accomplishment without seeing the irony of the resemblance of the mini TV and the iPod video. This was actually a pretty cool invention.

By: William Deering

William Deering — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 23:42:37 +0000

John,
It is Hubbard. Click on Charlie’s word “gallery” that is slightly high-lighted on his intro: “I thoroughly enjoyed this gallery . . .” and navigate to see the discription of all 30 pictures.

By: John M. Hanna

John M. Hanna — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 19:00:27 +0000

That third picture. Is that L. Ron Hubbard trying to read the Thetan levels in a tomato?

I knew that guy was crazy, but damn!

By: Randy

Randy — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:46:16 +0000

Heck, Fisher Body Division of General Motors designed and built a whole experimental fighter plane, the P-75: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-75

And General Motors was a contract manufacturer of fighters and dive bombers for the Navy during WWII too: http://www.history.navy.mil/ph.....es/fm2.htm

By: Firebrand38

Firebrand38 — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 03:32:03 +0000

Toronto: Yeah, that GM! That’s nothing! Back in the day I used to train on 4.2″ mortars that had been manufactured by the Whirlpool Corporation.

See if you recognize any of the these names, they manufactured M-1 carbines during WW2:
Rock-Ola Music Corporation (ROCK-OLA)
Standard Products (STANDARD PRODUCTS)
International Business Machines (IBM)
Quality Hardware (QUALITY HARDWARE)
National Postal Meter (NATIONAL POSTER METER)
Saginaw (SAGINAW DIVISION,GENERAL MOTORS)S.G.
Saginaw (Grand Rapids) S’G’
Underwood-Elliot-Fisher (UNDERWOOD)
Winchester (WINCHESTER)
Inland (INLAND DIVISION, GENERAL MOTORS)

Source: http://home.att.net/~ra-carbines/history.html

By: Toronto

Toronto — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 01:51:22 +0000

Wait – the submachine gun was “Manufactured by Guide Lamp Division of GM, Dayton, Oh.”

*THAT* GM? I never realized they made weapons smaller than Geo Metros. And “Guide Lamp Division” – good choice. A gun like that would make an excellent addition to your turn signals when you really really need to cut into a lane.

By: Firebrand38

Firebrand38 — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 21:22:15 +0000

There was a valid reason for testing it as a weapon for armored crewmen (not necessarily just for shooting around corners) http://www.rediscov.com/spring.....E=5437361,,

And by the way, it fired pistol ammo. That makes it a submachine gun.

By: Wafflenebbleweffer

Wafflenebbleweffer — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 04:42:55 +0000

You might want to check how many of these things are being marketed currently or lead to later inventions. Portable saunas are still marketed, throat mikes were used by pilots in WWII; the bent barrel machine gun http://collections.iwm.org.uk/.....WebDoc.988 had it’s design reasons, the tiny tv isn’t much different than an iPod with video but was limited by the tech of the day; Karaoke machines in Japan give you a numerical rating for your performance. Yodeling was popular in the 1920’s to 1940’s so a yodel meter isn’t a surprise other than that they could measure it at all.
Some of them are obviously joke items, especially the cigarette items or outright frauds. Others were tests to see if a technology was valid. Some of the UAVs marketed today work like that flying platform in the gallery. http://www.timboucher.com/jour.....e-weather/

People currently are selling jet packs for sport http://www.jetpackinternational.com/

The strapless bra isn’t any stranger than edible underwear. It just needs double sided adhesive tape and the same kind of trust that allows women to wear tube tops.

I’m not saying there’s a valid market for every invention. But if millions of Petrocks were sold http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_Rock then dumb isn’t necessarily true.

By: Toronto

Toronto — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:05:51 +0000

That’s a nice shot of Sir Clive “small things” Sinclair.

By: Charlie

Charlie — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:18:13 +0000

Charlene: Portland is great, though I’m still trying to find a place. My friend is a very gracious host, but still I’m looking forward to actually having a home again.

Will: I counted 12 I’m sure I have and another 3 or 4 I think I do.

By: William Deering

William Deering — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:27:24 +0000

I think you have posted about half of them in one form or another; 15 I’m guessing?

By: Charlene

Charlene — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:28:54 +0000

Welcome back! How’s Portland?